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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Bianca Nogrady

The rise of the sleep data nerds: ‘The harder you try, the harder it is to sleep’

Sleeping
Sleep data ‘nerds’ mine sleep data for insights into general health and wellbeing, using it to inform lifestyle decisions. Photograph: whitebalance.space/Getty Images

The first thing Annie and her partner do when they wake up in the morning is ask each other how well they slept. “And I literally say, ‘I’m not sure yet, let me check,’” – and Annie, a chief people and safety officer, reaches for her smartwatch.

Annie started monitoring because she worried she wasn’t getting enough good-quality sleep. Now she’s a self-confessed sleep data “nerd”, mining her sleep data for insights into her general health and wellbeing, using it to inform lifestyle decisions and even occasionally to guide how much she aims to accomplish in a day.

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